Firefighter Delivers Baby, Then Adopts Her

(Newser)
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After their second child, Marc Hadden and his wife were left unable to have a third due to medical complications, and the adoption process was too expensive, CBS News reports. Then a 911 call in 2011 changed everything for the South Carolina firefighter and his family. According to Today, Hadden's station received an emergency call about a woman with stomach pains. He arrived to find the woman going into labor and ended up delivering her baby in the back of an ambulance. Despite 20 years as a firefighter, it was the first time Hadden had delivered a baby. In a 2012 story, Hadden's wife told WMBF her husband "was ecstatic" about getting to deliver a baby.

But it didn't end there. At the hospital, Hadden heard that the baby's mother wanted the girl put up for adoption "immediately." Hadden joked about adopting the baby, but two days later—after talking to his wife and the baby's mother—little Gracie was at home with the Haddens. Now, Hadden calls the 5-year-old Gracie a "remarkable kid" and says "it was meant to be." Hadden, who believes Gracie's mother was homeless, says he's been open with Gracie about the story of how she came into the family, and she happily tells people her dad delivered her in an ambulance. (A man abandoned as a newborn found family after 39 years.)